As a long time plex pass user, is there anything there that would make me want to switch? Plex has just plain worked for me for years. mobile apps, everything is just great. Why should I look around?

My best friend at work is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. He will never not be - and I rush to profess that he is not an asshole…he just thinks conservitave/republican is the side he needs to support probably because that’s what daddy did, dunno. We see eye-eye on most other things.

We do not agree on anything political except that everyone is way too heated up over everything. We are still friends, regardless.

My point in responding is that his gay daughter disconnected from him after Trump v.1 - would not take a call or interact in any way. This is painful for my friend and he has been confused by it but does not realize why his daughter won’t engage. I think she is offended that his political choice doesn’t allow for her right to exist and, frankly I agree with her.

I think my friend has lost his daughter forever because he is a stubborn man. I hope your dad can open his heart to accept you.

Being of use to someone else - something as simple as opening a door or something as hard as helping someone change a tire on the road. That karma is like a hit of the stuff I don’t do anymore.

I found about 8K for my mom a few years ago doing that.

Mushrooms - I once puked them up on the table when my mom made me eat them…canned mushrooms FTW! I now, of course, can not get enough of them - sautéed, baked, sliced/raw on a salad…gimme some fungus already!!

BTW, you really should fix that sagging soffit and close the gap where the fascia meets the fireplace - don’t want critters getting in.

For a number of years when I was younger I would go find a sub-$1000 vehicle that was current on registration and just drive it into the ground then go get another one. With nothing but oil, gas, tires and occasional DIY repairs I could generally get a couple years out of them. What I saved on car payments went into a fund for the next one. Then I grew up.

I had a Hue remote laying around from before I started using HA. When I moved everything Hue onto my zigbee dongle from the hub I did the same with the remote. There is a blueprint out there that makes configuring it a breeze.

I join exactly at start time, down to the second. Once everyone has been counted or noticed and the droning idiot starts presenting I bug right TF out. Nothing will happen that matters because its a freakin’ meeting - if something important was going on it would be an email.

I use Unifi Protect for local NVR using a mix of Unifi and Reolink cameras. I put everything through scrypted so I get HKSV cloud backup of events. I normally view footage through Apple Home because it is a smooth experience.

I have read and worked through most of the O’Reilly animal books - perhaps this is before your time. Perl, C, C++, Java, etc… Yak, Camel, animals galore. I still have most of them buried in a closet somewhere.

This was before you could just google or (gasp, CGPT) your answer. You had to read and learn how to do something then try, practice and refine until you had a solution.

To this day I really prefer to enter a new language with a manual that has an index and examples. I could not have learned shit with nothing but Discord and (today’s) google to help.

I’ve only ever had 1 Shelly go out on me and it’s still installed. It’s a 2.5 that stopped speaking wifi. It was set to detached mode to keep some hue bulbs powered. Now the physical switches are no use but it still works so I just left it for now.

Oof, that was a slog - I burned out and started skipping around Thread. Also lemmy

I had never heard of Shinobi, had do duck it to find out what it is. Sorry I don’t have any help to give you but you mentioned unifi - you know that you can now add onvif cameras to Protect, right? That’s what I use for my NVR.

They integrate fine with HA - I have several PoE and one wifi and no problems. For NVR I use unifi now that they will let you add onvif cams. For day-to-day reference to video streams I prefer viewing events in HKSV via Scrypted.

If I dig down into the drawer with several layers of old iPhones I can find my palm pilot at the bottom right next to the Treo that replaced it.

I am embarrassed about how often I do this just because I can. My love of advanced cheese polymers with spicy/crunchy has surely packed the nooks and crannies of my gut with wads of micro-plastics but I just can’t help myself around queso.

Single serving crock pot is (to me) otherwise known as the queso pot!

Get a bag of tortilla chips

Throw a block of velveeta in the pot and cover it with Ro-Tel

Turn it on and get all melty

Stir until combined

Open your bag of chips and put yourself into a cheese-coma.

You’re going to have to get out of the house and interact with people, whether that is at work or some other group function. Some people use bars/clubs for that, others use church. Some engage in sports or gym, some join a book club. Seek out situations that force interaction with others and be open to it without making it weird by seeming needy.

Also not a coincidence